Adoration, the God beyond the Vedas
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आह्मी ज्याचे दास । त्याचा पंढरिये वास ॥1॥
तो हा देवांचा ही देव । काय किळकाळाचा भेव ॥ध्रु.॥
वेद जया गाती। श्रुति ह्मणती नेति नेति ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे निज । रूपडें हें तत्त्वबीज ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
He whose servants we are dwells in Pandhari. He is the God of all gods; what fear can time hold over Him? The Vedas sing His praise, and the scriptures declare 'not this, not this.' Says Tuka, His true form is the seed of all reality.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
We are his servants. His home is in Pandhari. He is the God even of the gods. What fear can death and time hold? The Vedas sing of him. The scriptures say of him, 'not this, not this.' Tuka says: this very form is the seed of all that is.
What it means
Tukaram places his whole standing in belonging to the Lord of Pandhari. To be the servant of one who is God even to the gods is to be lifted past the reach of death and time, so no fear remains. He sets the Vitthal standing in Pandhari beside the vast namings of scripture: the Vedas sing of this same Lord, and the Upanishads, unable to fix him in words, can only say 'not this, not this.' The point is that the simple form on the brick and the boundless reality the scriptures grope toward are one, for this form is the very seed and source of all that exists.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
More in this theme →